Forum on threat of refugee deportations Monday + report on Labor conf events

Hi all,

Thank you to all those who attended Sunday's rally for refugees outside Labor's national conference. About 500 people protested despite the bad weather. Inside the Labor conference's the government's anti-refugee policies were also challenged in a debate the day before. But unfortunately amendments moved by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's succeeded by a narrow margin of 27 votes over Labor for Refugees' amendments.
 
Bowen forced through changes to Labor's policy platform that enshrine offshore processing and open the door to reviving the Malaysia people swap deal. He has declared publicly his intention to re-introduce the Malaysia deal to parliament. It will not pass in the Senate, where The Greens and the Liberals will defeat it, but Bowen hopes to pass it through the lower house as a political stunt. This is aimed at continuing the government's efforts to outbid Tony Abbott on who can be "tougher" on refugees.

The government again tried to pretend that the Malaysia deal was a humanitarian measure, saying that if was approved the government could raise the refugee intake. But this only extends the original plan, where the Australian government would have accepted 4000 extra refugees in exchange for deporting 800 back to Malaysia. There is simply no reason why accepting more refugees should come at the cost of the rights of other refugees who arrive by boat. This would mean the wholesale undermining of Australia's basic humanitarian obligation to welcome refugees. And Bowen has admitted that his call to lift the refugee intake to 20,000 is merely an "aspiration"—with no timeframe or budget for it.

A further sign of the government's efforts to compete with the Liberals about being "tough" on refugees is its decision to begin moves to deport Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers. With two Tamil asylum seekers in Perth currently threatened with deportation next Monday and Tuesday, and an Afghan Hazara asylum seeker currently in legal limbo under this threat, RAC is holding a forum on this issue next week:

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NO FORCED DEPORTATIONS TO DANGER

Speakers include:
Abdul Karim Hekmat
(Afghan refugee and photographer and writer)

6pm Monday December 12
Teachers' Federation building
23-33 Mary St, Surry Hills (near Central station)

Invite your friends to the Facebook event at http://www.facebook.com/events/246447302085886/

The Australian government is currently attempting to deport Afghan Hazara asylum seeker, Ismail Mirza Jan, to Afghanistan.

Never before has an Afghan national been forcibly removed from Australia to Afghanistan. This would be a new low in Australia's refugee policy, with the Labor Government sinking even further than the Howard Government in pursuing deportations to danger. 

If Ismail is deported, this will open the way for the deportation of scores of Afghan, and potentially other, asylum seekers - back to war torn countries, impending danger, or even a death sentence.

Recently Ismail received a temporary reprieve when the Federal Magistrates Court questioned whether he received "procedural fairness" by the Australian government in their attempts to deport him. Ismail's deportation case is likely to come to the courts again in early 2012.

The refugee rights movement, and all those who oppose this move to forced deportations, have a short window of opportunity to build a broad campaign against the forced deportation of Ismail, and the terrible precedent it would provide for further deportations. Join us for in this important forum.

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National refugee movement consultation

On Saturday representatives of 10 refugee action groups from across the country met to discuss a campaign framework to escalate the campaign to free the refugees over the coming year.

Next year, 2012, is the twentieth anniversary of mandatory detention first introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1992. But instead of releasing asylum seekers and refugees from detention, the government is expanding the detention regime.

The refugee campaign meeting decided to focus on mandatory detention, the issue of deportations and to highlight the plight of refugees given an adverse security assessment by ASIO.

Key initiatives agreed at the meeting include:

A national Easter 2012 convergence to be held in Darwin, soon to be the detention capital of Australia, with the opening of Wickham Point detention centre expected next week.

Large refugee rights demonstrations around World Refugee Day in late June around the theme of 20 years of mandatory detention

Other events in early May to mark to date of the introduction of mandatory detention

Look out for more details to follow!